Giving a hoot about Canadian music

Premiere: Ivan Rivers – “Certain Soul”

Nearly coinciding exactly with the first birthday of Guelph singer-songwriter Ivan Rivers’ EP Confidante, Rivers has given one of its tracks, “Certain Soul,” the video treatment.

Directed by Danny Dunlop, we watch Rivers slowly looking at pieces in The ARTS Project space in London, Ontario. He then becomes enraptured by a painting that looks like himself…or maybe it is him. These visuals mirror Rivers’ gently delivered lyrics about his bipolar disorder and its accompanying psychotic and manic episodes.

“I wanted a video that depicted the wonder and the fear that coexist in the manic mind,” Rivers says in a press release. “My mania pushed life into a lens that viewed nearly every waking moment as an example of high art, and every piece of art as a reflection of my own existence.”